NCAA Will Consider Reduction of Games

Finding ways to allow student-athletes more time to devote to their studies and other pursuits is the main concern of the NCAA Presidents Commission, its chairman said Thursday in Washington, where the commission is meeting.

Suggestions include limiting intercollegiate competition to one semester, cutting back on the number of football and basketball games and reducing the amount of time students have to devote to practice, Chairman Martin Massengale said. Massengale is the chancellor of the University of Nebraska.

NCAA Executive Director Dick Schultz rejected plans to provide payments to athletes, saying that about 70% of Division I schools face some kind of operating deficit.

Meanwhile, in East Lansing, Mich., President John DiBiaggio of Michigan State, a member of a national panel studying intercollegiate athletics, said colleges should ban freshmen from competition, shorten seasons, and ask pro basketball and football teams to set up farm clubs.